Iniquity
by wilfred the pickle
Summary: A year after Reid's abduction at the hands of Tobias Hankel, a strange new case arrives on the BAU's door. While Reid tries to balance his work life and the increasing number of flashbacks and nightmares he now endures, their unsub sets their sights on a new victim - Spencer Reid himself. Will contain horror scenes and disturbing content, full warnings for each chapter inside.
1. symptom

**A/N: This fic is set roughly a year after the events of Revelations, so somewhere after Elephant's Memory, but before Lo-Fi. It's 2008 when this fic takes place, and I hope to God I've done the necessary math right. While the first few chapters of this fic are basically casefic, it will turn into straight up horror soon after that. It will get dark, gory, kind of trippy and probably triggering for some people, so I will warn for disturbing content before each chapter. There will be no rape or smut in this fic, as I'm uncomfortable writing it. There are also no pairings, and while the casefic parts centre around the team as a whole, this is primarily a Reid-centric fic.**

**Warning: PTSD and flashbacks, mentions of genital mutilation, mentions of some rather messy murder methods, experimental prose.**

**Enjoy!**

o o o

symptom _[noun]_: a change in the body or mind which indicates that a disease is present

o o o

_The shack is dark and cramped, the metallic taste of blood hanging at the back of his throat. His arms are useless, tied to the small, rickety chair he fears [knows, even] will soon break underneath him. His legs are equally immobile, having gone numb from the cold long [so cold] before he had awoken. In the distance, he can hear footsteps echoing from outside the cabin, getting progressively louder [and louder and louder and louder until they're all he can hear] as they approach the door. In the last few seconds before the figure will step inside, the footsteps are so deafening that he begins pulling at his restraints, desperately trying to cover his ears. A sob escapes him involuntarily, tears pricking at the corners of his eyes as he screws them shut and pulls helplessly at his bonds._

_[i don't want to die i don't want to die i don't want to die]_

"_Confess your sins, boy," a harsh voice growls from above him, before he feels the cold [why is it so cold?] steel barrel of a gun pressing into his forehead._

"_I haven't sinned," he whispers hoarsely, his throat as cracked and dry as sandpaper._

_The man merely smirks above him. "Everyone is a sinner," he sneers, finger pulled threateningly on the trigger. "Confess now, or die alone."_

"_I…" he croaks, stumbling as days of starvation [so hungry] begin to catch up to him. "I…"_

"_Confess them!" the voice suddenly roars, gun pressing in harder to his forehead._

_[i don't want to die i don't want to die i don't want to die i don't want to die]_

"_I…" he tries again, but all logic and reasoning has left him. "I have not sinned."_

_The voice is silent [deathly, fatally silent] for much too long for his liking, the only sounds being his own panicked, frenzied breathing as he stares into the thoughtful eyes of his captor._

_[is he going to kill me now?]_

"_Then you die," the voice says simply, smiling as he lifts the gun a little higher and pulls the tri_

o o o

Reid awakens with a gasp, eyes flying open at the very moment that Tobias pulls the trigger. He reaches desperately for his gun on his bedside table before he can stop himself, fingers curling around the trigger and aiming the barrel at his bedroom door before stopping to survey his surroundings.

_Normal bedroom here. Normal bedroom there,_ he notes, panic slowly beginning to subside. He breathes a heavy sigh and lets his gun drop down onto the floor, hanging his head as he lets his breathing return to normal. After just under a year of NA meetings, therapy sessions and good old-fashioned rest Reid had assumed that the nightmares would stop, but he was apparently wrong. The night terrors hadn't stopped since he'd arrived back in his own apartment after his ordeal, and had only gotten worse since he'd seen Ryan Phillips had his head blown apart in front of him. The Owen Savage case hadn't fared any better with him, making his cravings and paranoia worse and worse.

Reid sighs as he glances at the clock. The digital display reads 5:45 in the morning - too early to get up, too late to go back to sleep. Not that he thought he would be getting any more sleep, what with the nightmares and flashbacks making sleep a constant fear. He stretches and lifts himself out of bed, promising that he'd try and make an effort to use the extra time he now had to do something productive, like work on a paper, or water his plants.

Three hours of procrastination, unwritten papers and wilting plants later he's entering the BAU bullpen fifteen minutes early, keeping his sunglasses on to conceal the purple, bruise-like bags under his eyes. Prentiss is already at her desk working, which is somewhat of a surprise to Reid. Normally, the brunette likes to show up mere seconds before work starts, eager to lie in during the mornings.

"Why so early?" he remarks, settling his messenger bag at his desk.

"Why wear sunglasses indoors?" she counters, giving him a good-natured smile. "Good morning, by the way."

"Morning." Reid chews on his lower lip as he looks at his stack of paperwork. "Ugh. I definitely didn't have this many files in my to-do pile last night." He gives Prentiss a pointed look, raising one eyebrow. "Any chance this might be related to your mysterious early appearance this fine morning?"

"You'll finish them in half the time I would anyway," Prentiss smirks. "Plus with your genius, I worry that you're not being challenged enough. Also, I'll give you a cupcake if you do them for me."

"…What flavour?" he asks casually, tone impassive.

"Chocolate. Always chocolate, Reid. I'll throw in some free coffee from the good place down the road," she adds hurriedly when she sees the unimpressed look on Reid's face.

"Then as long as I get that coffee, we have a deal," he agrees, clicking his pen and looking the files over. "Why are you so desperate to get someone to do all your paperwork? You're usually caught up to date with it. 87 percent of the time, actually."

"Hotch _claims _he didn't receive any of my paperwork from last weekend," Prentiss replies, rolling her eyes. "I'm pretty sure he just lost it all and he's too embarrassed to admit it. Like that time when Morgan broke the coffee machine and tried to pin the blame on you. Unsuccessfully, I may add."

"I _was _slightly offended by Rossi's belief that I was not physically capable of breaking the coffee machine," Reid muses, chewing on the tip of his pen thoughtfully, "but apparently that's what the entire office thought too, so I can't really blame him."

"Blame Morgan and his fragile ego for snapping so suddenly when the coffee he tried to make refused to be heated properly," Prentiss smirks.

"That coffee machine was out for my blood," Morgan chuckles from behind them. "The cold coffee was just one thing. Did you not notice when it tried to burn me alive?"

"You were sidestepping around a new, pretty, female transfer agent and accidentally put your hand on the hot part," Prentiss deadpans.

"One would have thought it karma trying to teach you a lesson," Reid says mildly, turning back to his own paperwork. "Or several lessons."

"And good morning to you too, Pretty Boy," Morgan grins, ruffling Reid's hair and suppressing a smirk as the younger agent visibly sighs in defeat. "Nice shades, but why exactly are you wearing them inside?"

"It's _very_ bright in here today."

"What are you, a vampire? Get some sun on your face," Prentiss quips.

"You are_ not_ helping," Reid mutters, slowly sliding his sunglasses off his face in defeat. Both Prentiss and Morgan gasp a little as they see the circles under his eyes.

"Okay, Reid. Exactly how much sleep have you been getting over the past month?" Morgan asks in concern, squinting to see the traces of fatigue still present in Reid's face.

"I have a life outside of the BAU, you do realise?" Reid rolls his eyes and tries to settle back into his paperwork.

"A life of what?"

"Research papers. Nature documentaries. Doctor Who."

"Pretty boy, that's not a life-"

"Yes it is, Morgan. It's _mine_. I find it fun, okay?" Reid snaps uncharacteristically.

Prentiss shrinks back a little at Reid's outburst. "I definitely feel you about the Doctor Who," she smiles a little uneasily. "It's a perfectly valid use of our time."

Morgan shrugs. "To each their own," is all he says, taking a sip of his coffee and settling at his desk. He grimaces as he sees the amount of files stacked in his to-do pile. "Say, Reid," he begins sweetly, "since I have so many files and you've made it clear you love paperwork, why don't I just…_slip_ some over into your pile and nobody has to –"

"Don't start. Prentiss beat you to it," Reid interrupts without looking up from his desk.

"_Goddamnit –_ Prentiss, it was your turn last week!"

"Unforeseen circumstances arose," Prentiss says vaguely, watching as JJ exits Hotch's office with a pained grimace.

"Must be a bad one," Morgan says quietly as JJ approaches them.

"Pretty bad," JJ answers noncommittally. "Conference room as soon as we're officially on the clock. Hotch wants us out there as soon as possible."

"Where are we headed?" Reid frowns, shaking out the tension in his wrist from writing.

"New York," JJ replies, giving them a sad smile and heading back up the stairs to Rossi's office.

The bullpen is silent for a few more moments before Morgan sighs, stretching upwards and pushing his chair into his desk. "Sounds like I'll need more coffee," he decides, taking his now-empty cup and heading back to the kitchenette.

"Try not to burn yourself alive using the machine this time," Prentiss calls after him, a smirk on her face. Reid hides a laugh as Morgan makes an indignant face, following Prentiss into the conference room.

o o o

"New York, New York," Rossi quips, raising an eyebrow at the files JJ hands to him. "Frank Sinatra said it best."

"Frank Sinatra didn't mention the serial killer we're tracking down today," Morgan counters, rifling through the sheer amount of files placed upon the round table. "Jeez, how many victim files are there?"

"They believe the victim count is well into the forties," JJ explains, switching to the next slide of her presentation.

"The _forties?_" Prentiss exclaims in disbelief. "And we weren't called in earlier because…?"

"The detectives didn't even notice a connection between the victims at first," JJ begins. "They were doing routine check-ups of unsolved cases, and found a signature they'd previously missed." She switches to a slide consisting of pictures of various victims. "They began to notice that a large number of the victims in their recent unsolved single-murder cases were posed with their left palm facing upward, and their right palm facing down."

"It could also just be coincidence," Reid points out. "If you look closer, the palms are the only consistent thing with the posing of the bodies. Can that _really_ be considered a signature?"

"They went back a few more years and kept finding more cases with this signature present. The earliest victim is dated back to the late eighties," JJ explains. "1988, to be specific."

"Forty victims over approximately twenty years." Hotch sighs and leans back in his chair, folding his arms over his chest.

"That averages out to about one every six months," Rossi frowns. "That's one hell of a cooling off period for this guy."

"They want our help to try and figure out if this is just a huge coincidence, or all the work of one man," JJ says, switching to a timeline dating from 1988 to 2008. "These are the forty-three suspected victims of our unsub. A variety of different MOs was used, from disembowelment, genital mutilation, and…overdoses," JJ says, stealing a glance at Reid. "There were two that were even run over by a car. Police deemed those deaths to be a result of a hit and run, but realised now while looking for this unsub's signature that the position of the body was unnatural for a victim of a car accident."

"True," Reid nods, pointing to a photo of one of the victims of the supposed hit and runs. "The marks on the victim almost match up with the position they were found in, but not completely. Someone moved that body ever so slightly into that position. Of course, it could have just been the perpetrators of the aforementioned hit and run, although the lack of evidence on the body suggests the posing was very deliberate."

"Victimology is all over the place," Morgan notes. "Black, white, male, female – there doesn't seem to be a specific type this unsub is going for. If there _is_ an unsub."

"They're all roughly between the ages of twenty and fifty," Prentiss frowns, "but that's still a _huge_ demographic. Why were those specific victims targeted?"

"Opportunist?" Rossi suggests.

"That would explain the lack of a definite MO," Hotch nods. "Sees an opportunity, does anything to take it."

"Still, twenty years on and he hasn't figured out how he likes to kill? High unlikely," Reid comments. "The most likely explanation is that there is no unsub, even with the strange posing of the bodies. There's too many conflicting MOs, too wide a victimology. I mean, forced overdoses _and _blunt head trauma? Those are two completely different behaviours."

_Unsub number one, unsub number two. Tobias Hankel, Charles Hankel. Completely different, but still one and the same…_

Reid shakes the thought away. _There will be no flashbacks on this case. Not this time._

"Not if it's a team," Morgan counters. "One, two, even three unsubs. Those behaviours would make sense if there's three of them."

"Who's to say it's not just three independent killers, if that theory's true?" Prentiss points out.

"The posing," Hotch answers.

"It's never _simple,"_ Rossi grumbles. "I'm going to go ahead and say there's either a team working together, or just the one. The posing is too contrived for it to be a coincidence," he says.

JJ nods and switches to another slide, this one showing the various methods used on the victims. "Among the other MOs, there's gunshot trauma to the vital organs, fatal stab wounds, drowning, hanging, and electrocution. One suspected victim was even found starved to death."

"JJ, when was the latest victim found?" Reid asks.

"The most recent victim was Sally Adams, a social security officer," JJ replies, pointing her remote at a photo of a petite brunette, with a large nose and tired eyes. "No family, no children. Her husband had divorced her four months before she was found with stab wounds and genital mutilations. She was twenty-four."

"Was the husband ever questioned?" Morgan frowns.

"Yes, but he has a solid alibi for her death, on holiday in Vegas. Besides, he was twenty-two at the time of her murder. He would have been two years old at the time he began murdering if he's our unsub."

"Wouldn't surprise me, seeing the shit we see," Rossi mutters. "How was the first victim killed?"

"Alana Charles, forty-eight at the time of her death. She was found by her older brother, having suffered a drug overdose. The brother was questioned and released," JJ explains.

"Could that have been a stressor for the brother to snap and start killing?" Prentiss wonders, but Hotch shakes his head.

"It's pointless trying to come up with an explanation here. Once we get to New York, we'll have all the resources we need to come up with a profile." Hotch stands, flipping open his phone. "I'll get Garcia onto the victims, and we'll handle our own responsibilities when we get to the precinct. Wheels up in thirty minutes."

The team begins to disperse back into the bullpen, Reid lingering by the door and reading over the victim files left on the round table. A hand on Reid's shoulder makes him jump and whip around.

_[tobias' hands are strangling him, suffocating him and he can't breathe and it's getting darker and darker and he can't see a thing and all he can hear is his own pleas for help and i don't want to die i don't want to die i don't want to die playing in his head over and over]_

"-Reid!"

Reid blinks, the illusion of Tobias and hands around his throat broken, though the phantom pressure around his neck remains. "Excuse me?" he says breathlessly.

Morgan is in front of him, eyes worryingly searching Reid's. "Just stopping you from smacking your face into the wall," he says. "You okay? You zoned out before, and you're a little pale."

"Fine," Reid assures him, slipping his sunglasses back on. "I had a late night."

Morgan smirks knowingly. "Oh, _really _now? Do tell."

"Indeed. I actually stayed up all night writing an analysis of the underlying themes and recurring motifs in Star Trek, and compared them to the later spinoffs. It's really quite _fascinating _stuff, and once you-"

"Okay, okay, I get it!" Morgan grins, ambling away from Reid away to his desk. "Make sure you get some sleep on the plane, Pretty Boy. We need that genius brain of yours."

"See you on the plane," Reid calls out, waiting for Morgan to leave the bullpen before letting his back sink slowly down the wall until he sits completely on the floor, closing his eyes and letting out a shaky, relieved sigh.

Reid had let the demons left upon him by Tobias win against him once, but he would not let them win again.

o o o

**A/N: To anyone who is following my other CM fic Hollow, I will alternate between updating that and this, and they don't exist in the same universe. This fic is something quite different to Hollow – to try and demonstrate just how different they are, I got the idea for this fic from the video game franchise Silent Hill (although there are no supernatural elements in this fic). The new chapter of Hollow is in progress if you're wondering about that too, and I hope to have it up in = less than a week. Knowing me, I probably won't, but I can try! :D**

**Anyway, reviews and feedback are deeply appreciated, even if you have nothing really constructive to say. Thank you for reading! :D**


	2. clue

**A/N: I've been ill recently, so I apologise if this is a little…bad. And late. And also not a chapter of **_**Hollow, **_**which I said would come first. (Sorry! Dx) An explanation is at the author's note at the bottom of this chapter.**

**Thank you for the response to the first chapter! This story will also be posted at AO3, albeit slower updates than on here. Mainly because of their (stupid) uploading system. **

**Warnings for this chapter: A good deal of casefic, mentions of drug use, mentions of domestic violence, lack of capital letters in an attempt to look kind of poetic. **

**Enjoy!**

o o o

clue _[noun] _a fact or idea that serves to reveal something or solve a problem

o o o

The police department the BAU eventually arrives at is small and clearly understaffed; at the very back of the room sits a panicked secretary, typing frantically at her keyboard as she struggles to do work that should really be done by ten different people. The detective is standing at a whiteboard in an adjoining room, staring at pictures of the victims and the timeline they've hurriedly constructed, furrowing his brow as he tries in vain to find any connections between the victims he's missed. He notices the BAU arriving and immediately strides over to them, arm outstretched to shake JJ's hand.

"Agent Jareau," he says with a nod of his head. "We spoke on the phone?"

"Correct," JJ says with a smile. "These are Agents Hotchner, Morgan, Prentiss, Rossi and Doctor Reid," she says, gesturing to each member of the BAU in turn.

"I'm Detective Chapman," the detective introduces himself, moving forward to shake Hotch's hand with a firm grasp. "If I'm not around just give any information to our receptionist, Clara." From the back of the room, Clara raises her hand without looking up.

"If you don't mind us asking, where are the other officers?" Hotch asks mildly.

The detective sighs heavily. "There's a bank robbery downtown," he explains, rubbing the base of his nose in irritation. "I had every spare officer put on down there, and the rest are down in archives gathering the last of the older victim's files for you. We've got a room set up for you through here, if that's what you need?" he asks, gesturing through a wide doorway and into the room where the whiteboard sits waiting.

Reid immediately makes a beeline for the maps pinned up and begins his geographic profile, quickly becoming consumed in the tedious and repetitive calculations his brain handles so well. The noises from the police department begin to fade as his mind delves deeper and deeper into the profile, eyes glazing over slightly as he begins to push pins methodically into the map.

_[the needle pierces the crook of his elbow and it hurts, but then suddenly the pain is gone and not just the sting from the needle, the pain of everything; his childhood, his memories, his life]_

Reid glares, pushing the pins in deeper.

_[and as the drug runs sweetly through his veins, he knows that he'll never be the same, never be able to walk down a dark street without looking behind him every second, never be able to look at the bodies of the victims he's too late to save in quite the same detached way he manages to, never be able to breathe the same now that his lungs are shot to hell]_

"-Reid!"

Blinking out of his thoughts, Reid turns to see the entire team, plus Detective Chapman, staring at him with equally odd expressions on their faces. Hotch is holding out the keys to the SUV in front of him.

"Sorry. I got lost in thought," he says flimsily.

Hotch raises one eyebrow. "You and Morgan can head up to Sally Adam's workplace," he says slowly, pushing the keys into Reid's hands. "She works for Social Security. Her boss is expecting you. Sam Bellamy."

Reid takes the keys slowly and nods. "Sure," he says, not entirely surprised when his own voice sounds alien to him.

o o o

"So, Reid," Morgan begins conversationally as the SUV picks up speed. "You've been kind of-"

"_Not_ now," Reid interrupts, looking down at Sally Adam's victim file in his lap. "We're on a case, we have a responsibility."

"I have a responsibility to make sure my friends are okay," Morgan counters. "Come on, Reid. I can tell something is up."

"Why can't you just stay objective?" Reid sighs, taking off his sunglasses and turning to face Derek. "I get that you're worried, but you _should_ be more worried about the fact that this guy has killed an estimated forty people in twenty or so years and nobody has ever noticed. If we don't catch him, then nobody will."

"We always get the guy, Reid," Morgan reminds him, though he knows it's not the whole truth. They've lost unsubs before - maybe only two or three, but it still means they've let them get away, free to inflict their torture on other innocents. On a good day, Reid thinks of those potential victims and says a small prayer for their safety. On a bad day, Reid realises that he's one of them.

"I know for a fact that you're not that naïve, Morgan. Sometimes, we lose." Neither of them look at each other. Reid breathes a tiny sigh of relief when he sees that their destination is nearing, and hopes Morgan, as perceptible as he is, didn't pick up on it.

Morgan sighs sharply and bites hips lip in annoyance, looking out of the SUV window. "Is that why you're so focused on the case? You don't think we'll get this guy, and that we won't solve it without you?"

"No," comes Reid's earnest reply. "I think that the victims of this unsub deserve all the aid I can give to try and let them have some peace, wherever they rest now."

"Kid, I know empathy is what separates us from the monsters we catch, but having too much empathy can be just as dangerous as having too little." The SUV slows to a stop as Morgan cuts the engine, turning to face Reid - really _face _him this time. "So you tell me, kid. Are you sure that you can handle this case?"

"Yes, I'm _sure!" _Reid snaps. "Why _wouldn't_ I be able to handle it?"

"Seeing as you just bit my head off for asking if you were okay, I think I've got a valid argument," Morgan answers coolly.

Reid exhales sharply and rolls his eyes. "Pull over."

"What?"

"Pull. Over." Reid's tone is calm, yet dangerous. A voice inside Morgan's head whispers do not fuck with him. Morgan raises his eyebrows and does what Reid asked, abruptly pulling over to the side of the road and making quite a few cars honk.

"Okay, Reid, listen to me-"

"No, _you_ listen to _me_," Reid says in such a biting and vicious tone that Morgan is forced to shut the hell up or fear for his health. "No, I'm not feeling my best. No, I haven't been feeling my best for a while. And no, it's not affecting my job. As your _coworker," _Reid stresses, "I have no obligation to confide in you for anything until it starts to truly affect my ability to do my job - to rescue lives. As my _friend, _you have the right to be worried about me, but what you _don't_ have is the right to question me every opportunity you have and start thinking that I don't know what's best for myself. When this case is over, I plan to take action myself, but for now, when there are innocent lives on the line, I want to be there to help in any way that I possibly can. Are we on the same level?" Reid's eyes flash dangerously.

Morgan shudders. "Sure are, kid."

Reid smiles sweetly. "Excellent. Now start the car up and get us where we're meant to be. And don't call me kid."

o o o

The man at the front desk looks at them curiously as they step in, head buried in a mystery novel. Middle-aged but of a slender build, he puts down his book and starts typing at his keyboard in a vague attempt to make it look like he's actually working. "What can I do for you two gentleman?" he asks.

Morgan and Reid each hold up their badges. "FBI, Agents Derek Morgan and Spencer Reid," Morgan introduces them. "We're looking to speak to Sam Bellamy, he's expecting us."

The man turns back to his computer and presses a few keys. "Is this about Sally?" he asks concernedly, biting his lip. He raises his eyes at something on his computer, but blinks and turns back to face them.

"You knew her?" Reid asks, frowning.

"We all knew Sally," the man sighs. "Before she…died," he gulps, "she was acting real weird. Jumpy, looked like she was going to fall asleep all the time. Why are you investigating now, when it's been a few months?"

"We believe her murder is linked to a string of crimes around this area," Reid replies smoothly, refusing to budge when the man blinks owlishly at him.

"So…there's been _more?" _he frowns, sounding alarmed. "Does the public need to know? Are we targets here?"

"Sir, you're not in any danger," Morgan reassures him. "Speaking with your boss will help us to catch this guy, so we'd like to now, if that's possible."

"Anything for Sally," the man nods, standing up and leading the two agents through the building.

"Was Sally well-liked around here?" Reid asks, picking up on the tone in the man's voice.

"Before or after she started going a little cuckoo?" the man asks pointedly.

"Describe cuckoo," Morgan pushes, "Mister…"

"Call me Justin," the man supplies. "Cuckoo…well, she came in with bruises some days. Around her face, neck. I think she was having marital problems, because she divorced her husband. It was a real messy affair, you know. Everyone spreading rumors, talk of restraining orders. None of it was true, but after her divorce, her performance on the job just…dropped. She used to be so full of energy, then it just seemed to disappear." Justin stops suddenly, gesturing into Bellamy's office. "My boss is in there, just go in. I hope you catch the guy," he adds with a small smile. "Sally deserves it."

Morgan gives Justin a small nod. 'Thank you for your time," he says. "Can we come back here and talk to you again if we need to?"

Justin shrugs. "Sure, but there's people here that knew Sally better than me. Bellamy included. Sorry, I gotta get back to the desk. Work to do, you know. If you need me again, I'll be there," he says, turning back to

"Thanks again," Reid calls out to him with a slight smile. As soon as Justin is out of earshot, he rolls his eyes and turns back to the door. "_Work to do, you know. _No, I don't know. He was reading when we came in, not working."

"Hey, I've seen you reading at your desk more than once," Morgan chides him. "Reading _comic books_. At least that guy's reading something interesting."

"At least _I'm _open about it," Reid retorts as Morgan pushes the door open.

From his desk, an older man lifts his head and looms up at them. "Agents Morgan and Reid?" he asks, standing up and shaking Morgan's hand. A faint look of puzzlement comes across his face when Reid retracts his hand uncomfortably and instead gives the man a small wave, but he just gives the younger agent a smile. "Not a fan of handshakes?"

Reid shakes his head. "Not particularly," he says with a grimace.

Bellamy shrugs. "Fair enough. Here, come take a seat. What do you need to know?"

"One of your workers mentioned that Sally was acting off before she was found," Morgan starts, easing into a chair in front of Bellamy's desk. Reid catches a glimpse of an employee of the month record book and opens it, flicking rapidly through the pages.

"Sally was a rare one," Bellamy sighs, taking a photo from behind some stacks of paper and presenting it to Morgan. "Never without a smile on her face. That guy in the photo was her husband. I thought they were really in love until they divorced, a few months before she…She didn't have any other family. If I were to guess who thought of getting the divorce in the first place, it was probably him."

"What was her job performance like? She didn't seem unhappy about a situation at home, did she?" Morgan questions, studying the photo of Sally and her ex-husband. Nothing in the photo looks out of place; both her and her husband's smile are genuine, their body language indicates that the pair are happy with each other. They look like the typical young couple, Morgan notes. Not like an abusive relationship at all.

"She won employee of the month a _lot_," Reid remarks. 'About sixty-three percent of the time, to be specific." He ignores the quizzical look Bellamy gives him, instead moving on and examining the later entries in the records.

"She deserved it," Bellamy explains simply. "Her performance was always top-notch. To be honest, she really deserved it every month, but I couldn't just give her the employee of the month award every month."

"Why? Would someone get jealous?" Morgan frowns.

Bellamy blinks. "No! Nothing like that. It's just, Sally…well, someone around here spread a rumour that Sally and I were sleeping together. But that's all it was. A rumour," he stresses firmly. "She was twenty-three at the time. I'm forty-nine. I would never, ever-"

"I believe you," Reid reassures him. "You don't fit the profile of a rapist, anyway."

Bellamy blinks. "I guess that's a good thing," he jokes nervously, keeping his eyes trained on Reid as the younger man rapidly flicks through the employee records Bellamy previously laid out. "Sorry, but - are you actually reading those, or are you just-"

"Yes," Reid answers simply.

The older man bites his lip. "Okay," he says, turning back to Morgan. "About the time that she and her husband divorced, she began acting…strangely. She looked like she was on the verge of crying all the time, looked like she was going to fall asleep, she didn't have the same…_vibe _to her as before. It was like all her energy just…disappeared. I think she was seeing a therapist, she mentioned it off-handedly once. I can't remember the name, I'm sorry, but it should be somewhere in her files. I can look it up for you if you-"

Morgan's phone rings, cutting Bellamy off in the middle of his sentence. He mouths 'sorry' to him, before taking out his phone and answering the call. "Penelope?" he asks

"…Chocolate God?" a tinny Garcia asks, sounding slightly confused. "What's with the first name? Am I in trouble?"

"No, you're on speaker and there are strangers present," Morgan grins. "So, what do you have for us?"

"Okay, so I looked up Sally Adams and it turns out that she's been taking this little thing called alprazolam, which is a medication for-"

"Anxiety," Reid interrupts, frowning as he goes closer to the phone. "It's a benzodiazepine, it's commonly called Xanax, it's effective for anxiety and panic attacks."

"And once again, Genius Doctor Reid is right on the money," Garcia says with a grin Reid can almost see. "And then I did more digging, and it turns out at actually, about half of the most recent victims - about five or six of them, were taking either alprazolam or another benzodiathingy, which is a definite and undeniable connection."

"That's great, Garcia. Can we track where their medication came from-" Morgan begins to ask, but Garcia cuts him off.

"Aha! And this is where I've _really_ excelled," she grins. "So I did even more digging, and I found that Sally Adams and another recent victim Brian Millar were seeing the same therapist as each other. Not at the same time, but still, an unmistakable connection. The therapist's name is Amanda-"

"Amanda Springs!" Bellamy exclaims suddenly.

Garcia is silent for a few moments before continuing. "I don't know who you are, good sir, but you're right. Sally Adams saw Dr. Spring for two months before she died, Brian Millar saw her for three. I told Hotch and he said that you two should go pay her a visit tomorrow, and go and get some rest at the hotel first. And that was an order, so you'd better go do it, like, _now_. Talk to you later."

Morgan nods and stands to leave. "Thank you, babygirl," he smiles, ending the phone call.

"Feel free to come back anytime," Bellamy tells the two agents, shaking Morgan's hand once more. "Anything to catch this guy. We all miss Sally."

"We'll be sure to let you know if there are any updates in the investigation," Reid nods, putting the employee records off haphazardly to one side. "Thank you for your time."

"Thank you for taking the case," Bellamy smiles in return.

The two agents exit the office, walking back down the parking lot to reach the SUV. "So, that was some extensive knowledge about the anxiety medication," Morgan says lightly.

"No, that was just basic chemistry," Reid remarks. "If you had as many PhDs as I do, you'd know what it is too."

Morgan sighs and opens the driver's door. "If I had as many PhDs as you do, my brain would explode," he grins.

Reid smirks. "Yeah, you probably couldn't handle it."

o o o

_[the gun feels hot and heavy in his hands as he sees tobias' figure collapse onto the ground, as limp and as lifeless as a rag doll. he sits there for a few solid seconds, staring at the mess tobias' blood is making, seeping out and staining the dirt a dark crimson. he slowly moves forward, watching the body for any signs of movement. He reaches into tobias' pocket, pulling out the vials of dilaudid and slowly pulling away._

_tobias' hand jerks and grabs his arm, eyes snapping open and a smirk twisting his face.]_

Reid wakes up with a jolt, hearing the thump of something falling heavily on the carpet and footsteps echoing outside his hotel room. The room is completely dark, save for the small nightlight he brings along with him to each case. Even with the small amount of light it brings, it's still too dark to see what the cause of the noise was. Reaching instinctively for his gun, he points it at the door, still breathing rapidly.

He waits for ten seconds. Nothing.

He gets out of bed, turns on the flashlight attachment of his gun, and walks slowly to the door.

Crouches down.

Takes a deep breath and shines the light down at the carpet.

A needle and a vial of Dilaudid lie there, the surface of the glass cracked like a spider web.

_[remember me?]_

o o o

**A/N: So as I said, I've been ill recently. I had lots of nosebleeds and bled all over the keyboard a couple of times, I hurt my wrist (that I apparently sprained, as opposed to just regularly hurt it - thanks for telling me that after I went back to dancing and re-injured it, not before, which would have been useful to know…) And then I also apparently contracted TMD literally overnight, which means that for a while, I couldn't eat properly. So I stopped writing the next chapter of **_**Hollow**_** when that happened, because I didn't really want to write fic about recovering from an eating disorder when I couldn't eat myself. Yeah.**

**Anyway, I feel mostly better now, and I've stopped sneezing blood all over the laptop screen. (That is the grossest thing in the world, by the way. And also the most embarrassing when you sneeze blood all over tablet while your history teacher is standing right behind you and watching you.)**

**Reviews and feedback are deeply appreciated, even if you having nothing to say. Seriously, even one word reviews are awesome to me. **

**Thank you for reading!**


	3. red herring

**A/N: Thank you so much for the support for the last chapter! I'm feeling a lot better but I'm still not eating much, but this will hopefully change soon after to go to the doctor again and see about better pain meds and such.**

**I'm going away from October 3-12 for dancing, so this is a slightly shorter chapter since I'm packing and practicing non-stop. **

**Also, does anyone here read Shadow Unit? Because I finally finished it yesterday, and now I need someone to cry to.**

**Warnings: mentions of abuse, infidelity, genital mutilation, drugs, anxiety and death of a child.**

o o o

_red herring [ noun ] _

_a clue or piece of information which is or is intended to be misleading or distracting._

o o o

_He waits for ten seconds. Nothing._

_He gets out of bed, turns on the flashlight attachment of his gun, and walks slowly to the door._

_Crouches down._

_Takes a deep breath and shines the light down at the carpet._

_A needle and a vial of Dilaudid lie there, the surface of the glass cracked like a spider web._

_[remember me?]_

Reid stares at the needle and vial in utter incomprehension, too shocked and confused to even _begin_ to theorize how or why someone knows about his history with Dilaudid. Or, Reid realises with a sickening feeling, how they know what hotel room he's staying in. At first he tries to play it off as pure coincidence; maybe the guy's a dealer, delivering his product to the wrong person. Maybe it's just a harmless prank, concocted by some stoned teenager hoping to scare someone. Maybe it's an attempt to frame someone for possession of an illegal substance - a really _bad_ one, but an attempt nonetheless. His theories are shattered when he snatches the Dilaudid from the carpet and feels his fingertips brush against thin, wrinkled paper. Reid frowns, shining his flashlight on the vial to reveal a battered note taped to its surface. The handwriting is spindly but neat, with narrow, long letters and small ink stains dotted along its surface.

A knock at the door jolts Reid out of his thoughts. He takes his focus off the note and points his gun shakily at the door, on the verge of succumbing to panic entirely. "Who is it?" he says with the little confidence he can muster.

"Reid? It's Hotch," a voice says from outside.

_Shit. _Reid grabs the needle and the vial and moves over to the other side of the room, away from the door. "What is it?" he calls out, when he's not holding illegal drugs just a few centimeters away from his boss.

"There's another body," Hotch says, beginning to sound impatient.

"Just...uh, give me a sec." Frantically, Reid opens a drawer and shoves the Dilaudid inside of it, hurriedly straightening his clothes up and opening the door as he holds the crumpled note in his palm. "Another body? As in, a fresh body?"

"Dead for less than an hour," Hotch nods gravely. "Even more strangely, the body was found right outside the entrance to this hotel."

Reid chokes back a gasp - are the drugs and the new body related? Had their unsub been literally just a few inches away from him? The realization that the unsub may know more about his past than Reid would care for makes him bite his lip in worry.

Hotch notices, his scowl softening in concern. "You feel okay, Reid?"

Reid nods briskly. "Jus' tired," he replies, adding in a little slur in his speech for effect. Hotch seems to buy it, nodding in understanding and continuing.

"We're all going to the scene now, but if you're really tired, you can stay behind if you want," his boss offers.

Reid shakes his head quickly. "No, I'm good. I just need a few minutes to get myself looking like I didn't just roll out of bed."

"That's fine. We're all meeting in the hotel lobby in ten minutes, come down and meet us if you're up to it," Hotch tells him. "And I agree, please _try_ and make yourself a little more…presentable." Hotch gives him a grim half-smile as he walks back down the hall, leaving Reid alone in the doorway of his hotel room.

As soon as he's sure that Hotch can't hear the lock on his door being turned, Reid locks the door tightly shut and retrieves the Dilaudid and needle from the drawer, unfolding the crumpled note from his palm. The handwriting is even harder to read now, but with the light now turned on, Reid can just manage to make out the message.

_Spencer Reid,_

_Hankel was right to punish you for your sins, but I am your judge now. I know what you've done._

The message abruptly ends there, a drawing of a gun firing a bullet scribbled into the top-right corner.

o o o

Prentiss squints at the body, squatting down to get a closer look in the lack of light. "Female, appears thirty to forty years old. We got an identity for her yet?"

Hotch nods, arms folded across his chest. "Elaina Dunne, she was staying here at the hotel for a week. Tonight was meant to be her last night here before she flew back home, in Virginia."

"Ominous," Rossi comments quietly, taking an evidence bag from a passing CSI tech. "This is the bullet that killed her, I presume?" he asks the tech.

The tech nods. "Cause of death was one bullet through the skull. Went through both ends cleanly and quickly."

"Look at the hands." Reid points to Elaina's arms. "Both palms are facing upward. T-there's no signature here."

Morgan raises his eyebrows at Reid's stutter, but nods. "How do we even know this is our unsub? Before, the victims all suffered in some way. I mean, genital mutilation? Strangling? Drowning? Those are all violent behaviors. A bullet in the head is too quick and efficient for an unsub like this."

"At least one other victim has been shot," Reid suggests. "Luke Payne was found dead in an alley next to a drugstore, shot several times through the heart and other organs and posed in the same way as the other victims."

"Maybe the unsub forgot to pose the body?" Prentiss suggests. "He could have been in a hurry, or have some other motive besides killing her."

"Unsubs don't just forget their signatures," Hotch frowns. "I hate to say it, but I think this is an unrelated murder. The behavior is completely different, there's no posing, the method is too efficient and impersonal."

"Personal…" Reid mutters under his breath, brow furrowed in thought. The note he'd received had certainly been personal, but was it the unsub who had left it under his door in the first place?

Reid doesn't want to think about the implications of that being true, that an innocent person died because of a secret he'd tried to keep hidden.

Hotch glances up at him quizzically, raising his eyebrows. "You've got something?" he asks the younger agent, but Reid quickly shakes his head.

"No, just that you're right. The behavior doesn't match up at all." He bites his lip, waiting for someone to draw the obvious conclusion.

"So we all got out of bed in the middle of the night for an unrelated murder." Rossi's voice sounds deviously calm, considering the circumstance.

"It would appear so," Hotch sighs. "We still need to follow procedure. Prentiss, get the detective over here and explain. Is there anyone who thinks this is our unsub?

There's a deafening silence, and Reid wonders whether he should speak up about the note. As much as he hates to admit it, there's a strong chance that it could be their unsub, or at least the murderer of Elaina Dunne.

No. Right now, he needs to be working the case. If he tells Hotch about the drugs, then he can't work the case, and if their unsub is aware of his involvement, then he might just be the key to getting their unsub.

For now, he says nothing.

o o o

Dr. Amanda Springs is tall and willowy, with close-cropped blonde hair and warm eyes. Her office is bright and cheery, with pictures of her family and her clients lining her desk and walls. "Just call me Amanda," she says, gesturing for them to sit down. "I understand you're investigating Sally's death?"

"And Brian Millar," Morgan adds, sitting down gratefully.

Amanda blinks in surprise. "Brian Millar died in a car accident. It was ruled as non-suspicious, wasn't it?"

"It was a hit-and-run, not just a car accident," Reid explains. "We understand that Brian Millar and Sally Adams were attending private therapy sessions with you?"

"That's right," Amanda confirms. "Brian Millar stopped seeing me after three months. I thought he wasn't quite ready, but he said he thought it was for the best, and I trusted him. He'd come a long way."

"Did Sally stop the sessions before you thought it best as well?" Morgan frowns.

Amanda shakes her head and sighs heavily, turning her chair around and digging into her desk drawers for her files. "She was killed before her we made any real progress. I met with her for two months, and I still couldn't get her to fully open up. She'd been hurt, that girl." When both Morgan and Reid stay silent, she continues nervously. "She'd been having panic attacks and nightmares. Both of them were having them. They both took alprazolam for their anxiety, but it didn't really help either of them effectively."

"How had Sally been hurt, Amanda?" Reid prompts, keeping his face neutral.

Amanda bites her lip. "I don't want to speak ill of the dead, but…she cheated on her husband. Lied to the man she was having an affair with about being single, and when he found out, he started making threats to her and beat her. When her husband found out, they separated. The trauma of her affair and losing her husband in such a short span of time caused her to develop severe anxiety and PTSD." She hands Reid a stack of papers, held together precariously by one paperclip. "This is Sally Adams' file. There's not much to go on, but there are some transcripts of our conversations you may find useful."

"Do you know who the man she cheated with?" Morgan asks as Reid gratefully accepts her file with a dip of his head.

"Sorry, she never wanted to tell me. I think she loved him, to be honest. It's the only reason that I can think of why she kept going back to him even after he beat her."

"What about Brian Millar?" Reid frowns as he skims through the transcripts.

"He was having the same problems as Sally - anxiety, PTSD, even hallucinations."

Reid frowns at Amanda's vague explanation. "What kind of hallucinations? Auditory, visual, tactile?" he asks, closing the file and handing it over to Morgan. "And what was his PTSD from?"

Amanda sighs heavily, crossing her legs as her eyes harden. "What I say now stays in this room, okay? Brian wanted to take this secret with him to the grave, and frankly, I don't blame him."

"We understand," Reid nods. "What you tell us now might help save a life in the future."

Amanda purses her lips before continuing. "When Brian was seventeen, he was driving past his little sister's friend's birthday party. He was going there to pick her up early, since she had a doctor's appointment. As he was pulling into the friend's driveway, his sister's friend ran behind the car. There wasn't enough time for him to stop," she finishes grimly.

_Jesus_. "What happened to her?" Reid asks gently, seeing Amanda gulp heavily.

"She died on the way to the hospital. She was only six." She sighs, handing Reid Brian's file. "Brian never really recovered. Twenty years later, he was still having flashbacks and had a phobia of driving."

"Wait…" Reid frowns, turning to Morgan. "We said before that Elaina Dunne's murder was too impersonal to be our unsub, right?"

"Right," Morgan nods. "A bullet to the head is hardly consistent with any of the violent behavior expressed so far."

"Well, Sally Adams was having an affair with another man. She's killed by a mixture of stab wounds to the chest and genitals. Brian Millar killed a little girl in a car accident, and he's killed in a hit-and-run."

Morgan's eyes widen in understanding. "It's like their deaths are _tailored _to their wrongdoings," he says slowly, taking out his phone. "We need to get Garcia on all those other victims, go through their lives inch by inch and see if the pattern is consistent."

Reid bites his lip. "That's forty-one lives to pick apart. There's _a lot _of digging to do."

Morgan grimaces. "No one better than Garcia to do it, then."

o o o

_When he finally wakes up, Reid expects to see Tobias hovering over him, a stick in one hand and a Bible in the other. Instead, the only thing above him is the bright light, surrounded by darkness - one all too similar to a bare bulb, slowly swinging above him as he is left to decay in the hands of a madman._

_[am i back in the shed? i don't want to die]_

_Then he feels the thin touch of fingers wrapped around his upper arm, in what Reid supposes is meant to be comforting. The darkness around that single bright light dissolves to reveal the stark white ceiling of a hospital room, the beeping of strange machines and the tiny pricks of various tubes finally reaching him. Gideon's face suddenly appears above him; the older man's lips are moving, but Reid can't hear anything he's saying. If he's saying anything - Reid wouldn't put it past Gideon to try and use some fancy mind trick to speed up his recovery, or something. Reid knows all too well from talking to victims that nothing can really speed up the recovery process - sometimes, it's just a matter of waiting. _

_Gideon's voice finally reaches his ears. "Reid? How are you feeling?" the older man says with a patronizing air that is slightly nauseating under the circumstances._

_Reid's throat is too sore to manage a proper response. "Tired," he finally croaks out, already feeling his eyelids beginning to droop closed. Above him, Gideon nods in understand with a sympathetic smile on his face, and Reid wishes that he'd go away to leave him in peace._

"_Of course," he chuckles, and the man has the damn audacity to chuckle, Reid thinks. He wants to hold onto his anger, but the tired feeling has grown into total exhaustion, and he can't help it when he finally does fall asleep._

_When he wakes up again, he is alone except for the ghost of Tobias sitting by his bedside in vigil._

o o o

**A/N: Pushed for time, so not much of an author's note. Thank you for reading!**


	4. retreat

**A/N: Thank you for the response to the last chapter! Sorry it's been practically **_**two whole months **_**since I last updated - exams and dance nationals got in the way a little bit. (Still a tighter schedule than Hollow, though.) I am, however, feeling much better, apart from a broken foot or foot-crappy-injury-pain thing. Thank you for all the get-well wishes ; v ;**

**This is a very dialogue-heavy chapter, albeit a necessary one. This is also the last chapter where the rest of the team are featured prominently, and it also stops being a casefic and moves into…something else.**

**Quite a tame chapter in the way of warning for content, but please let me know if I've forgotten anything you might want me to warn for.**

**Enjoy!**

o o o

retreat _[noun]: _an act of moving back or withdrawing

o o o

"Sir, I've gone through twenty of the victims so far." Garcia's voice rings clear throughout the quiet precinct, all attention turning immediately to her voice.

"And?" Hotch prompts, folding his arms.

"Seventeen of those twenty had things they might have wanted to hide." Garcia clears her throat. "The other three I'm still working on."

"What kind of things are you looking for?" Morgan asks.

"I looked for a criminal record first. Lily Dilger, died in 1993, had a record of solicitation and petty theft, and Lucas Rouse, died 2004, beat his wife. Rouse was beaten to death, while - and here's the icky part - Dilger was raped and then disemboweled."

"Like her organs were stolen," Prentiss notes.

Reid bites on the inside of his cheek and folds his arms. _Or something more important was, _he almost says.

"Are there any cases you've found where the cause of death doesn't match anything you've found?" Rossi frowns.

"No, sir. There's some strange ones, but they all seem to match _too_ well, if anything." There's the faint sound of fingers tapping on keys before Garcia continues. "I'll send you all a list of all the victims I've compiled so far. Be careful, some of them are a little icky." Reid can almost hear the way Garcia's lips turn downward as she finishes her sentence, biting his own lip hard. The room seems too hot, but he doesn't dare take off the overly-large sweater he's wearing - he doesn't want the team to see his bare arms. He knows the fear is irrational, as the track marks in the crook of his elbow faded a long time ago. Physically, Reid doesn't scar. Mentally is another question.

"Thank you Garcia," Hotch says as Garcia's displays blips out off the monitor abruptly.

"So how's our unsub getting access to all this information?" Prentiss asks, tossing a file onto the desk, frustration evident in her features.

"There's a lot more jobs where you can get access to this kind of information than the public thinks there are," Rossi interrupts, eyebrows furrowed in thought. "

"You don't even have to have a job that gains you that access," Morgan points out. "I mean, anyone with Penelope's hacking skills and a good setup could find out your entire life history in a matter of minutes."

"If these murders have continued for twenty years we have to assume that our unsub is around forty years old," Hotch muses. "I know that these days anyone can learn how to hack, but a man over forty?"

"_If_ it's just one guy." JJ points to the list of causes of deaths they've pinned up on their whiteboard. "Some of these murders would be complicated for just one person to plan and set up. Brian Millar's hit-and-run, for example. If he really was a specific target and not just a victim of opportunity, the unsub would have had to follow him, presumably from his home or other place Millar frequented."

The fax machine buzzes and Reid grabs the paper before anyone else can. "Amy Sewell, died in 2004, was found dead of starvation in her apartment. She'd been in treatment for an eating disorder from 2001 to 2003. How'd he kill her? Barricade her in her apartment and stop her from eating?"

"I don't see another way." Hotch frowns. "Any other oddities on the list?"

Reid twists his mouth, scanning the rest of the list in a matter of seconds. He raises his eyebrows as he catches something particularly interesting. "This is kind of odd."

"What is it?" JJ asks, arms folding over her chest.

"Klaus McCarthy, died in 1998. His twin died when they were seven - Klaus pushed him into a barbed wire fence. Years later, found murdered in a corn m-maze, strangled with razor wire." Nobody misses the stutter, and Reid feels himself flushing profusely. Biting his lip, he sets the list down on the table for Prentiss to pick up. She does so, scanning the list quickly and pretending not to see his blush.

"Was his twin's death an accident?" she wonders, eyebrows peaking. "The fact that McCarthy spend a good few years in institutions in his teenage years suggests that wasn't the case."

"Would it matter to this unsub?" Morgan asks. "Accidental or not, McCarthy still killed someone."

JJ clears her throat quietly. "It didn't matter to him when he killed Brian Millar," she reminds them, arms still crossed tightly. Reid rests an elbow against the table and taps his temple incessantly. The room has gotten inexplicably hotter in the past minute, sweat beginning to bead on Reid's forehead. He's about to ask if anyone else has noticed it, but Rossi interrupts him.

"So what's with the signature?" he muses, thick eyebrows furrowed. "That pose he puts the bodies in doesn't seem to be anything special."

"Could it just be a weird fetish?" Prentiss suggests, but Hotch shakes his head.

"Nothing but the position of the hands is consistent. Brian Millar was found face down, Lily Dilger didn't. Unless he doesn't care about the bodies, only the hands."

"Why would it be a fetish anyway?" Morgan points out. "If he's killing them because of what he perceives as their wrongdoings, them he wouldn't need a sexual component."

"Then why such a specific position?" JJ bites her lip and turns to Reid. "What about a religious component? Maybe a burial tradition, or some kind of other ceremony for the dead?"

Reid blinks. "Uh, I don't know. Can't think of anything. Sorry."

The rest of the team is silent for a few seconds before Hotch speaks up. "Reid, you look pale. Do you feel okay?"

"I'm fine," Reid assures them lamely, fully aware of their skepticism. "I'm just hot." To prove his point, he pulls his sweater vest over his head and dumps it on the table. The team seem satisfied for the moment, the conversation carrying on. He still feels hot, even hotter than before. _And dizzy, _he realises, blinking harshly as a sudden wave of dizziness makes him waverat the table. He covers it quickly, steadying himself with his elbow. The team starts theorizing again, and Reid hears Morgan saying something about _past experience _before everything around him suddenly fades into the distance, blurring and distorting. Everything sounds as if he's underwater; he can vaguely hear - _is that Hotch? _- talking, words he can't quite distinguish. His vision seems to swim as the dizziness returns, the faces of his coworkers beginning to bleed into one another. Someone is shouting now - _loudly, _Reid thinks with mild irritation - and he looks slowly towards the conference room door, watching with confusion and fear as a familiar face walks through.

_tobias hankel is there, blood seeping from a ragged bullet hole in the very centre of his chest, eyes wild and accusing. he marches straight up to reid and grabs the younger man by the collar, his other hand wrapping tightly around reid's neck. reid's eyes widen as his oxygen supply is cut off, his own hands batting weakly against hankel's._

_[i don't want to die i don't want to die]_

_and suddenly he's back in the dark, dank shed, seizing on the floor as tobias leans over him, sneering as he waits for him to die._

o o o

The first thing Reid feels as he begins to wake up is a hand gripping his shoulder.

He lets out a strangled scream that's cut off by his dry throat, breath catching. As his vision returns to normal, he sees a very concerned Hotch looming over him. Though his mouth is moving, Reid can only hear his voice like his ears are full of cotton wool, until his hearing suddenly returns to shocking clarity.

"-Reid!" Hotch says firmly, the hand on Reid's shoulder never wavering. "Reid, can you hear me?"

"…Hotch?" Reid slurs, blinking hazily as Hotch immediately focuses on him. "W-what are you doing?"

"You passed out, Reid. We carried you in here," Hotch explains, right as Reid realises they're no longer in the conference room. Instead, Hotch has brought him to a small side-office that connects on to the conference room. Reid can see the rest of his team milling aimlessly around outside through the small window in the door.

"Why not just leave me in there with the whole team?" Reid asks. It comes out more bitter than he means it to, yet if Hotch noticed, he doesn't say anything.

"I thought it might be too much." Hotch raises an eyebrow. "That being said, I really think we should have a talk."

Reid bites his lip and nods hesitantly, bracing himself as Hotch lifts a hand to help him off the carpet of the office. "Is there anyway out of this?" he asks his boss hopelessly.

Hotch grimaces dryly. "I'm afraid not. Would you like to sit down?" he asks, gesturing to the couch near a desk at the side of the room. Reid obliges, the whole setup feeling uncomfortably like a therapist's appointment.

"I'm sorry," Reid blurts out before Hotch can interrupt. He still feels on edge from his - dream? Hallucination? - of Tobias, can still feel the faint touch of Tobias' hand on his shoulder.

Hotch raises his eyebrows for what must be the third time in a minute. "For what?"

"…This?" Reid frowns. "Passing out on a case, making everyone stop working for me, potentially endangering the lives of others-"

Hotch holds up a hand before Reid can continue. "Spencer, your wellbeing is more important to me than this case. It always has been. You have nothing to be sorry for."

"I don't care. It was irresponsible to not be aware of my own health." Reid glances shiftily from the door to Hotch, back to the door, fully aware that he's vulnerable to anyone who decides to walk through it.

Hotch sighs, tapping his temple with his finger. "If you want to think of it that way then that's fine, but be aware I don't see it that way."

Reid nods and bites his lip, eyes cast downwards. "Can I request something?"

Hotch blinks. "Of course," he says guardedly.

"I want to be taken off this case." Reid maintains eye contact with his boss, fingers tapping his thighs rapidly under the des where Hotch can't see them.

Hotch frowns concernedly, concealing the little jolt of surprise that had been his first instinct upon hearing Reid's news. "Do you think that's the best solution?"

Reid is silent for a moment before he continues, looking over his shoulder nervously. "You know why I want it, don't you?" He pauses, picking at his nails. "Neither of us has to say it out loud that this is about Tobias. I'm a textbook case of PTSD."

Hotch steeples his hands in front of him. "You're not a textbook case of anything."

"Is that a compliment or an insult?"

"Neither." Hotch twists his mouth as he pauses to think. "Truth be told, I think it's a good idea. I noticed you've been a bit…on edge lately, too. But why do you think PTSD?"

Reid shrugs bitterly. "Oh, I don't know. It could be the flashbacks, the nightmares, the hallucinations, the hyper-vigilance. Anyone of those would do."

"Why didn't you tell us about the flashbacks?"

"Never occurred to me," Reid admits, and he's telling the truth. He always just figured that the team wouldn't want to hear about it, or be too busy with all their own personal crap that they simply couldn't handle Reid's as well. He'd almost gotten over Tobias anyway,

"Well, did you talk to anyone?"

"I almost went to a therapist. Then we got a case and I had to reschedule, and…well, I just never got back around to rescheduling."

"I think you should give it another try," Hotch says, holding up a hand again to cut off Reid's inevitable protests. "Yes, I know you can run rings around any therapist you come across, but please, try and let them help. It'll work out better for you in the long-run, trust me."

"You sound like you have experience." It's a completely dickish move and they both know it, but Hotch smiles thinly and answers anyway.

"Marriage counselor before Haley and I divorced. She was a great help. At first, at least."

Reid quirks an eyebrow. "It doesn't always work out for some people."

"Don't try and turn this conversation around to be about me," Hotch smiles, and Reid smiles with him. He's forgotten that Hotch can actually have a sense of humor, and that it's often one of the only things that can cheer up their office environment, should he care to use it.

"I'll think about it," Reid says, standing to leave. "Can you wrangle the jet into picking me up, or will I have to fly with the peasants in working class?"

"I can probably get you the jet," Hotch replies, already reaching for his cellphone in his bag. "You need rest, you deserve it. You can rest in your hotel room, and I'll text you when it arrives."

Reid nods. "Thanks, Hotch. I really appreciate this."

"It's no problem, Reid. Don't be afraid to ask for time off in the future either. I won't pressure you into going to a therapist, but I sincerely hope you do," Hotch nods.

"I think I might," Reid says, though he's only really saying it to please Hotch. In reality, the idea of going to a therapist, letting a total stranger know all his darkest secrets, makes his skin crawl, reminds him too much of their unsub. Reminds him too much of the Dilaudid sitting in his hotel room drawers.

"One more thing," Hotch calls out as Reid begins to leave.

"Yeah?"

"You don't think you'll relapse?" Hotch's face is stoic, and Reid can tell it's killing him to see Reid go without any support at home. For a moment he almost thinks about telling Hotch about the Dilaudid he'd found in his hotel room, but dismisses the idea as soon as it enters his mind.

That never happened, he thinks. As soon as I get the chance I'll dispose of it, and I'll never have to bring it up. Somebody just made an honest, unfortunate mistake. That's all that happened.

"Reid?" Hotch prompts him, frowning.

He swallows quickly before replying, grabbing his messenger bag that someone's kindly hung on the door handle for him. "No," he manages to croak out, voice hoarse. "No, I won't. But I think I'll catch another movie, just in case."

o o o

The jet is mercifully quiet after the ruckus he'd created when he passed out. There's no team to fawn over him, no case to be analyzed and deconstructed, just Reid and the novel he'd picked out from a second-hand bookstore before the case had begun. That piece and quiet is handily interrupted when his cellphone rings from deep within his messenger bag. Cursing, he begins to try and dig it out from the very bottom of the bag, breathing a sigh of relief when his fingertips finally brush the cool plastic. He takes one look at the caller I.D and his sigh of relief turns into a sigh of disappointment.

He takes the call and presses the phone to his ear. "Yeah, Morgan?"

"Pretty Boy!" crows the older agent, and Reid can't help but cringe at his use of the nickname. "I was just wondering if-"

"I'm fine," Reid snaps, rolling his eyes. "Did Hotch not explain the situation to you?"

Morgan is silent for a few moments. "I was actually calling to ask if you had anything to add to the profile, but now that you've said that, I'm glad your okay."

Reid bites his lip. "Oh. Thanks." He does a double-take. "Wait, you're giving the profile?"

"Yeah. You got anything else?"

"Isn't it a little early for the profile?" Reid asks

"Hotch doesn't seem to think so. You got anything?"

"Uh…I do have some notes from before." Reid scrunches up his face as he digs through his messenger bag again to retrieve his notes. "Uhhh…'_unsub has intimate knowledge of victim's past and habits, varied race of victims allows no reliable conclusions from racial profiling, male over forty, evil Garcia?' _That's all I had."

"Evil Garcia?"

"With the hacking, and the information, and the other things," Reid dismisses, seeing the pilot wave at him as she boards the plane. "Listen, the jet's gonna take off, I have to switch off my mobile. I'll email the team when I get home and you can email me back if you need anything. My phone will probably be turned off."

"Sure. And Reid, seriously, feel better. We're all here for you. You can talk to me, or anyone else on the team, if you feel you need it."

Reid's lips thin. "Thanks. I'll talk to you later."

"Congratulations, you're officially on a month of leave, Pretty Boy. See you-"

"Wait, a _month!? _That wasn't what Hotch and I agreed on!" Reid exclaims in horror. An entire _month? _He'd been thinking a _week_ at most.

"Apparently that's what he thought you meant, because he's already told Garcia to put it into the system." Reid can almost hear Morgan's shrug on the other end of the line. "Sorry, man. I don't make the rules."

"Can't you get Hotch to change it?" Reid pleads. "A month with no work is going to be the most tedious thing I'll ever live through."

"He's in a meeting right now, but I can ask him about it when he gets out," Morgan replies. "Check your email, I'll see what I can do."

Reid huffs. "Thanks," he says. "Hope you catch the unsub. Don't die."

"Likewise, kid," Morgan grins, before Reid hears the click of the older agent hanging up.

o o o

_The unsub we're looking for is presumably male, aged between forty and fifty years old. He is classified as a vigilante killer, undertaking law enforcement without legal authority. Because of this, he does not have a specific physical requirement of a victim; he does not fantasize about these victims. Instead, he views it as a service to the world, a necessity. _

They sit there in their living room, TV muted so that they can hear the music box playing in the corner. They've had that music box for thirty years, and the damn thing still looks like it was bought yesterday. They'd give the ugly ornament away to some relatives, if they had any.

_The pose, however, is a definite signature that he leaves at every crime he commits. There could be multiple reasons for this signature - a religious component could be fueling this unsub's desire to punish those he feels deserves it. It could also be something he witnessed from childhood or adolescence, such as a dead body in real life or on a TV show or movie, that had enough of an impact on him to influence him to leave this signature._

They light up a new cigarette, eyes leaving the music box and falling upon the photos gathered at his feet. The photos show a young man, about twenty-six or twenty-seven, with messy brown hair and tired bags under his eyes. Skinny, but not in a malnourished way. They smirk to themselves as they remembered what they'd found after they'd searched for his name in their database. Kidnapped. Cardiac arrest. Drugs. Ended up killing his captor, he did.

It doesn't matter to them. Murder is murder.

_This unsub has intimate knowledge of his victim's personal, private lives. He targets his victims based on the secrets from their past, the ones they'd rather hide. For this, he must have a job or the proficient knowledge of computer hacking to be able to locate the records necessary to find this information. Locating these records would also be a crime. Look for a male aged forty to fifty with a history in computer sciences or with a job that would allow him to snoop on these records with limited supervision. He could be finding his victims from his job, but so far, we have found no connections between all of the victims. _

They inhale the last of the cigarette and leave the embers to burn on the carpet, taking out a new match and preparing to whisper the name of his newest victim.

_This killer his largely invisible to his victims. For some victims, intimate knowledge of their daily routine is required to murder them. All of his kills require planning, usually extensive. He probably stalks most of his victims without their knowledge. He targets victims who, to him, have committed grave indiscretions. Crimes._

They poise the match against the rough side of the matchbox.

_He may even see them as sins._

"…Spencer Reid."

They light the match, and the photos begin to burn.

o o o

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